


warmth

by hydrospanners



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, Bull's Chargers, Cremesius "Krem" Aclassi, Dalish, Drabble, Gen, Kinda
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-08
Updated: 2018-04-08
Packaged: 2019-04-19 01:46:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14226420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hydrospanners/pseuds/hydrospanners
Summary: The Iron Bull is Ben Hassrath and Niria Adaar knows without doubt that the Ben Hassrath is not to be trusted. Or she used to, anyway. There's something about the way Bull is with the Chargers that makes Niria question the things she thought she knew.





	warmth

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on Tumblr. Written for Fictober 2017.

The Iron Bull is different with his Chargers.

It takes time to notice. Time and careful attention. But Niria Adaar’s eyes haven’t left that Ben Hassrath bastard’s back since the Storm Coast.

He plays the friendly, boisterous brute well. He fights in the daytime, drinks in the evening, and fucks through the night. He’s brazen and honest about things most decent folk would never admit to, and that tricks people into thinking he’s honest about everything.

She knows better.

It’s the same game she’s played the better part of her life. Showing off the shocking thing in the right hand so no one pays attention to the left.

Ria keeps expecting to find something nefarious in the left. Poisons, plots, secret manifestos. Maybe one of those collars they put on mages back in Par Vollen.

All she finds is the Chargers. Warmth and tenderness and genuine affection, saved up for the end of the night when everyone else is too drunk to notice or remember his softness. How he holds back Dalish’s hair while she pukes on his boots and how she doesn’t seem to mind that he does it. How Krem drifts easily off to sleep propped against his pillowy bosom.

It isn’t even that Bull is gentle with them. He’s a bred spy with more years in the field than she’s had in her life. Ria’s a sneaky bitch-–sneakier than anyone gives her credit for–-but she’s not delusional enough to think he hasn’t noticed her watching. She wants to think that’s why he does it. That he’s trying to earn her trust by showing her how he cares for these people.

If it was just Bull, she could let herself believe that. But it isn’t.

Skittish Dalish doesn’t even flinch when he drags his massive hand through her hair, stroking it and muttering encouragement as she spills her evening’s drink on his feet. She’s perfectly at ease, like they’ve done this a million times before.

Tevinter Krem who’s spent so much time looking over his shoulders is so at ease with his boss that he can sleep soundly at his breast in a tavern full of strangers.

None of them flinch or startle at these tiny affections, and that’s why Ria can’t convince herself they’re a performance. Not even the Ben Hassrath can manufacture a family, but it’s clear that’s what The Iron Bull has.

She wonders what he’ll do when the day comes that the Qun demands he give them up. That will be the day, she decides, when she finally sees what sort of man he really is.


End file.
